This is an excerpt from the introduction of Stretched: A Study for Lent and the Entire Christian Life by Christopher Richmann (1517 Publishing, 2026).
We can bring our troubles, griefs, sorrows, and sins to Jesus, who meets us smack dab in the middle of our messy mob.
Confession isn’t a detour in the liturgy. It’s the doorway.

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Rather than praying a lie by pretending all is well, this psalm places upon our lips a truthful plea. A godly complaint. These are God’s words, given as gifts to you, by which you can speak back to him.
Job’s friend Zophar had it up to here! He was done hearing Job defend himself in the midst of his suffering. Surely, Job must have done SOMETHING to bring all this calamity upon himself.
For the less we tell these stories of sin, the more it seems we are ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for the salvation of bad people.
A twelve-year-old girl stomped out of the room and slammed her bedroom door. Her two parents sat at the table completely befuddled. They had been trying to lead her to grace, to forgiveness, to a remembering that she was loved.
Moms, your worth is not determined by what present you get on Mother’s Day. Everything that is true about you was said on the cross thousands of years ago.
In divorce God married me to the cross. I didn’t want it; indeed, I hated it. But upon my shoulders God laid it. The ring of nails. The veil of darkness. The kiss of death. When we are stripped of all the good we think we are and have, we come face to face with the evil within. We fight and wrestle and gasp and die and become nothing.
Premeditated or not, you and only you invited this venom into your body, this evil percolating in your soul, and now you don’t know where to turn.
I don’t mean simply that I “loved the darkness rather than the light because my deeds were evil,” as Jesus says (John 3:19). While that is true, there was deeper magic at work. I loved the darkness because I feared all the good things in the light.
My husband, Phil, and I just celebrated our 40th anniversary. Forty years ago he pledged to love and care for me. Forty years ago I pledged the same things. Forty years.
Being thrown in the pit was but one of the many smoking guns that the prosecutor could bring forth as evidence.
A little magic goes a long way. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of magic. Magic, hidden in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
It was by listening closely to Dr. Rosenbladt's words and watching his quiet actions that one could learn many things about being a dad.